My background is in sales and marketing. I was one of the founding employees of MTV back in the early eighties, and went on to a successful career as an executive with various media and entertainment companies. In 1993 I started my own company in the software industry and sold it to an Israelis company in 2000 which was subsequently sold to BMC Software a few years later. In more recent times, I won the $100,000 Grand Prize in the John Templeton Power of Purpose Essay Contest with my essay Brother John and I had a very well received article published here at Forbes.com called Business Secrets of the Trappists... which has been expanded into my current book, "Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO's Quest for Meaning and Authenticity" (Columbia Business School Publishing, July 2013). My primary focus is as an author, a speaker and marketing consultant helping clients develop non religious marketing strategies for leveraging the emergent trend toward spirituality. You can learn more at www.AugustTurak.com.

Eight Lessons from the Great Man (or Woman) School of Leadership

Every great leader subscribes to an inside-out, “Great Man” theory of human psychology and history. Check out these eight lessons to see if you do too.

I was a sophomore in college in 1972, and I was traversing the campus with a graduate student in engineering. He asked what I was majoring in. “Russian history,” I replied. “What in God’s name are you going to do with it?” He said right on cue. I told him I didn’t think about it much, but perhaps I’d become a Russian history professor. He shook his head sadly at my naiveté and said, “Do you know how many jobs open up each year for Russian history professors? Maybe three.” “That’s great news,” I said. “It’s two more than I need.”

* * *

By the time I graduated from third grade I was already addicted to history. While I didn’t realize it at the time, the books I devoured by the bushel were all adherents of the “Great Man” theory of history. This theory argues that great men and women shape history rather than being merely shaped by it. It relies on what might be called an “inside-out” model of human psychology as well: Success emerges from the active “push” of individuals rather than the passive “pull” of environmental forces acting on them. Similarly, early business historians extolled the virtues of “self-made men” like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and the first pioneers in leadership development – people like Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill – concentrated on inspirationally reinforcing the inside-out will to succeed in the individual. The American Dream itself owes its genesis to the inside-out notion that with thrift, hard work, and plenty of “gumption,” any individual can succeed in America regardless of how many obstacles a hostile socio-economic “environment” might set against him.

By the time I reached college, the Great Man theory of history had been largely “discredited” by most academic historians under the influence of Karl Marx. Taking a page from the physics of Isaac Newton, Marx argued that similar laws of cause and effect determine the course of history. History for Marx was not driven by individuals and free choices. Instead individuals were deterministically driven by impersonal forces like capitalism and “class consciousness.” In college I also discovered that the Great Man theory had undergone an even further downward “revision” at the hands of Behavioristic psychologists like Watson and Skinner. Sadly, the heroes of my youth were now little more than a “bundle of conditioned reflexes” reacting helplessly, like Pavlov’s dog, to the outside-in forces of their “environment.”

According to my professors, it was these same historical and psychological forces that in turn produced that dark and amorphous demi-god that many still refer to as “society.” It is ironic that despite the fact that Newton has been superseded by Einstein, Marx largely discredited, and Behaviorism discarded, many people still insist that it is society that unconsciously “conditions” us into racists, sexists, criminals, and every other manner of moral defect that flesh is heir to. If in a more religious time, “the devil made me do it,” today it is “society” that carries that prodding pitch fork of responsibility.

This paradigm shift has shown up in business, leadership, and theories of management as well. Once lauded as figures to be emulated, men like Rockefeller and Carnegie are now only robber barons. Anything but “self-made,” they were just the heartless automatons that every fundamentally “unjust society” throws off as a toxic by-product. Similarly, while leadership development used to focus on identifying and developing “high potential” individuals in an inside-out fashion, today we are far more likely to concentrate on creating the outside-in business “climates,” “environments,” and “cultures,” that can putatively turn every human being into a high performing individual.

Much of the discord in our current political situation can be described as a competition between the inside-out and outside-in theories of human nature. Loosely speaking, progressives believe that if you want to change people you must first change their ambient environment. Conservatives on the other hand disparage these attempts as the one-size-fits-all “social engineering” of the “nanny state,” and tend to think that society is best served by an inside-out approach that “frees” the individual to succeed “on his own.”

For the record, I am firmly convinced that both approaches have merit. While I have a deep and abiding respect for self-made people, no one values the beneficial effects of an authentic culture on individuals, including myself, more than I do. However, I also believe that every great leader has a huge bias toward the inside-out, Great Man theory of history and human nature regardless of whether this theory is objectively valid or not.

1) Vocation. Great leaders all feel “called” by something deep inside them urging them to take the kind of risks with their lives that most people avoid.

2) Self-Confidence. Every great leader believes in himself, and his ability to “make a difference.” Even a hard core progressive leader, for example, must believe that he or she can wiggle free from the crushing influences of the ambient socio-economic environment long enough to change that environment for others.

3) Superstition. While most would deny it, great leaders share a superstitious sense that it is their destiny to succeed. This in turn provides an uncanny knack for rejecting any environmental noise from peers, pundits, and “experts” that may argue otherwise.

4) Challenge. Every great leader seeks challenges rather than fairness. In fact great leaders often seem to perversely make things more difficult for themselves by piling on the obstacles rather than avoiding them. In my own company for example, my partners and I decided to eschew venture capital and debt. We knew that building an enterprise solely on internally generated cash would be far more difficult and probably less remunerative. So why did we do it? Simply because we thought it would be far more fun and personally satisfying to do it the hard way. And it was.

5) Persistence. Every great leader has an almost religious reverence for the magic of hard work and determination. It is not just that great leaders don’t know when it’s time to quit. They simply don’t know how to quit.

6) Action Bias. Great leaders aggressively act. Most people wait until something in their environment – like their boss – tells them what to do. In fact great leaders rely on the hesitancy of others for the competitive lead time that is so crucial for success.

7) Optimism. Great leaders are invariably optimists. Their glass is perpetually half full about what committed people can achieve either individually or even better as a team.

8) Faith. All the above traits might be subsumed under the single term, faith. Great leaders all believe, rightly or wrongly, that through the dint of their own efforts and those who are attracted to them almost anything in life can be accomplished and almost any challenge overcome.

If this article seems to favor the great man theory of success over its competitor it was intentional. However it is not because I don’t think environmental forces are equally important and, in some cases, even more important. It is just that I believe that the pendulum has swung so far away from the mythos of the American Dream and self-made men that it is high time to redress the balance through overemphasizing to make my point. Perhaps I am just getting old, or conversely, maybe I just never grew up. But if I hadn’t spent my life believing in the existence of heroic individuals and their ability to make history I am convinced that my life would have turned out far worse than it has. So I can honestly say, with almost a straight face, that I owe it all to guys like Socrates and Alexander the Great. And maybe I’m just old fashioned enough to believe that you may need a hero or two to help you reach your full potential as well.

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A very nice piece to challenge our thinking indeed, I must say..Even though I am not a big fan of the ‘Great Man’ theory when it comes to deciding what makes a good leader, I would not deny that I am addicted to historical figures ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (e.g. Socrates, Plato, Conficius, Alexander, Hitler and etc.) and their contributions/lessons to the world.

However, what I find interesting is that, apart from the fact that these leaders may have DNA which explains their behavior and actions, the obsession to keep moving forward (for selfless or selfish reasons) and their chosen support enviornment (including people behind them) defined the kind of leadership they ended up with. In many historical cases (e.g Political figures), living up to the expectations of the followers altered the ‘leader’ and his or her cause.

Thanks for the very perceptive comment Kala. I agree completely. Leadership is a combination of both our own efforts and outside forces. However as I said in the piece I think we’ve slipped too far in the direction that we are all passive cogs in some huge gear called “society.” This mythos saps initiative and creates a “victim” mentality. And no leader can succeed without believing he or she can “make a difference.” Again thanks for your comment.